An intensive foster care program is changing the lives of Toowoomba’s most troubled children by helping them transition out of institutionalised residential care and back into family homes.

Child welfare organisation OzChild is delivering the Queensland-first program in which specialist foster carers are trained and paid up to $75,000 per annum to care for children with complex behavioural and emotional problems, which have resulted from their neglect, abuse, and trauma.

OzChild CEO Dr Lisa Griffiths said the Toowoomba and South West region was chosen in 2018 to host the pilot program because of the high number of children under 12 in residential care.

“Our foster carers work closely with our professional support team which includes therapists, skills coaches and a teacher to deliver the program’s behaviour modification strategies,” Dr Griffiths said.

“Often the problem is the system around the children. There are not enough trained foster carers to take on children with trauma,” she said.

“Often trauma manifests itself in negative behaviour and the program teaches both foster carers and families how to manage those behaviours in a positive way.

“For a lot of kids, this is their last chance to get out of the system and get back to a family.”

The program has more than a 90% success rate with 22 children in Toowoomba and South West region successfully completing the program and returning to their family or family-based foster care.

Member for Toowoomba South David Janetzki MP said it had become an increasing trend for children to be placed in residential care as a first, not a last resort, because the children had nowhere else to go.

“Residential care is an institution, it is not a stable, loving family home,” Mr Janetzki said.

"It is certainly not the place for traumatised young children, including babies, to live where they are supervised by paid shift-workers,” he said.

“There is a well-established link between children in residential care, their over-representation in the youth justice system and their future involvement in the adult criminal system.”

Mr Janetzki has joined child safety advocates in calling for the government to invest more funding into fostering and prevention programs, rather than expensive residential facilities.

“Resi care is failing our children, and it is outrageously expensive,” Mr Janetzki said.

“The average cost of residential care in our region is almost $445,000 per child, per year, with some children costing upward of $1million-$2milllion per year in resi care,” he said.

“Compare this with the cost of family-based care, which is $30,660 per child, per year.

“The OzChild Toowoomba team and the region’s nine intensive foster carers are achieving life-changing results for these children whom everyone else has given up on.”

Mr Janetzki said the professional foster care program was a shining example of the change the LNP would establish with their $383 million Safer Children, Safer Communities policy announced last week.

“These kids deserve a chance to reclaim their childhood, and I am honoured to be part of their journey.” 

Number of children in residential care triples amidst staggering costs

• The number of local children trapped in the failing and expensive residential care system has risen to 444, with one child costing taxpayers almost $2million in one year.
• Figures tabled in Queensland Parliament earlier this year revealed there were 444 children in residential care in the South West region as at September 30, 2023 – up from 136 children in 2016.
• Residential care facilities were originally established as a last resort for teenagers whose foster care placements had failed, often due to violent and extreme trauma-related behaviour.
• However, in recent years an increasing number of younger children aged under 12 have been placed in resi-care facilities.
• The cost of resi-care in the South West region in 2023 has not yet been revealed, but it reached more than $176million in 2022 – an average cost of $443,125 per child, per year. 
• In comparison, $30,660 is the average cost per child, per year in family-based care such as foster care or kinship care. 
• The OzChild intensive foster care program costs between $250,000-$300,000 per child for an 11-month program. 
• When that child graduates the program, they are transitioned to either family care, kinship care of long-term foster care.
• The program successfully removes the child from the residential care system, saving the government millions of dollars each year.